FinalFest!

Yeah, I'm not going to make it down there today, even though Brother is closing out the fest tonight and I missed them on Friday night.

On Wednesday, thefrogger and I ate lunch to the accompaniement of Shafaatullah Khan, who did some interesting things with hand drums but had a sitar player who played the same little bit over. And over. And over. That evening, I fested with one of my dad's cousins and her husband - we wandered about catching bits and pieces of a few acts, including Cast in Bronze, Russ Rentler, and a longer stretch with the Boris Garcia Band. I introduced them to Mama Nina's for dinner, and that seemed to go over well. We also caught a few works from Watermelon Slim and the Workers. Ol' Slim looked pretty roadworn and frail, but he could make that slide guitar sing, and his own voice accurately transcribed the blues.

On Friday, I wandered a bit after work and before poetry at the Moravian Book Shop, catching some of (I think), The Terry Barrett Band, and a bit of Ceili Rain. Ceili Rain have a lot of musical talent, not quite my thing, and the Christian aspect kind of overwhelmed the Celtic aspects after a bit. Their bass player used a Warwick, though, so that's a good thing. =)

Randy Weeks was playing over at the Americaplatz - I liked his stuff well enough, but for some reason he reminded me of another vocalist. I closed my eyes at one point, and, without the visual aspect, realized who it was: Gobo Fraggle. I suppose that won't be considered a positive association, but, for my part, I really like the tunes Gobo sings lead on, especially the tunes that are more bluesy, and rather in line with Randy's own writing. Randy was accompanied by a guitarist - and I want to say Chet Thompson, but as there's another guitarist by that exact name, I may just have a few wires crossed. Anyway, this guy, who accompanied Randy's vocals, harmonica, and acoustic guitar with a telecaster, was an exceptional player. Definitely the best guitar playing I witnessed during this year's fest.

The Lefty Valdez Band

3 out of 4 of the active members of the Lefty Valdez Band got together last night to work further on The Tune.

We started out on the front porch, until it got dark, and Deb unlocked the door and let us back in. After a few rounds of practice, some playing around on other potential themes, we got to work on The Tune. A second riff for the bass introduced itself to me, and so I played it for noone234 and Rachel. Once we came back inside, we set to work devising the sax part for the transition and the new riff, and, by the end of the night, we had it.

We refined the existing parts by following the lead Justin had accidentally set when he first transcribed The Tune, and we don't give the horns a measure off between each of their lines. Now, we come in pretty much at the same time with only a quick slide on the last bit of the 4-e-and-a, so, boom, we all start at 1. Four measures of intro, then we segue to the new bit, which, on its own is 12 measures of bass. The final holding note of the intro hangs over that first measure (so we have 5 measures of the horns) and we've got the sax part for the next two measures, completing the first figure of the new part. We'll tighten that up once Justin gets back from vacation and writes his trumpet part - posibilities are: harmonizing the sax part, sitting out for a short sax solo and coming in after, or doing something completely different. In any case, the tune is shaping up nicely.

We met, briefly, our temporary percussionist - Korg, his name is - although we couldn't hear a beat he played on account of a distinct lack of RCA plugs (or 1/4" to RCA conversion cables). noone234's cousin sounds like he'd be a good fit, although he'd have some difficulty commuting down from Buffalo. So the position is still officially open.